Now I don’t know about how you feel about chocolate mousse, but I’m a bit of a fan. That’s not to say that every day (or even once a week) is Chocolate Mousse Day, but I have an appreciation for a well made chocolate mousse. They’re not terribly difficult to make at home either, so a shop bought one had better be good if it’s going to get my seal of approval.
These Gü mousses use a very respectable 56% cocoa chocolate which does impart a particularly rich flavour.
Appearance wise, once you peel back the foil wrapper, you’re greeted with a smooth, machine-poured chocolate mousse. Scratch the surface and you can see a good amount of air in the mousse.
Air bubbles aside, these are dense little mousses. Thick, gooey chocolate mousse with dark, deep cocoa flavours. They may not look large, but there’s a lot of rich chocolate in one of those little pots. I found myself trying out ways to cut the density of the mousse down a little. Current favourites include a splash of coffee liqueur or a covering of sliced strawberries and a dollop of whipped cream, but a simple dash of cream or a blob of ice cream work equally well. It certainly makes them less daunting!
If you can’t be bothered to melt some chocolate and separate a few eggs, then this is probably the next best thing available at your local supermarket. It tastes like it’s been made with good quality ingredients (primarily the chocolate of course) and it invites the adventurous to top it off with whatever may take their fancy. Well worth buying.
Helsham is a small chocolate company who founded by Helen Wood and Shami Doshi who, according to their web site, “share a love and passion for fine food”. Aside from that, I don’t know a lot about them – they’re one of the many smaller chocolate makers that have contacted us out of the blue recently.
They sent us this little box of six handmade chocolates which is billed as the “Mother’s Day Selection” on the leaflet inside. Well it’s a bit late for that, but the chocs still look fresh and tasty to me.
The packaging is adequate, rather than anything more. It’s pretty, but clearly not luxury. The chocolates are obviously handmade, but the box doesn’t ooze quality and the menu leaflet is badly printed on cheap paper. First impressions definitely shout “home made” rather than just “hand made”, which isn’t necesarily a bad thing, but a little attention to detail would have been nice.
The chocolates don’t have names, but we have a raspberry in milk chocolate, strawberry in white chocolate, ginger in dark chocolate, Irish liqueur, lemon and Bombay Gin in white chocolate, and hazelnut in milk chocolate. Some fairly conventional flavours (with the possible exception of the Gin), but all made with fresh ingredients.
The other thing worth mentioning is that these are big chocolates – something that appeals to me a lot! They could quite easily gotten away with making 12 chocolates half the size adds to that home made feel and gives them a bit of a personal touch. The fillings are a little firm though. For chocolates these size, lighter, softer centres would have been more manageable.
The flavour combinations all work very well together, and I was particularly fond of the white chocolate ganache with lemon and gin. Any of those flavours could have been overpowering, but it was done with a subtlety that gave it a delicious, refreshing edge. All the flavours came through without being too sweet, too citrus or too alcoholic.
But mostly, these are fairly standard, run of the mill ganaches. They’re very pleasant, but nothing stands out – or goes much beyond what any of us could make in our own kitchens. If I had one word of advice for Helen & Shami, it would be to be a little more adventurous and pay a little more attention to detail. The market is filled with small companies like Helsham, and if you want to stand out, you have to make a bit more of an impact than this.
It’s not every day that you get sent fresh, chocolate covered strawberries from Scotland. But so far this week, it’s happened to me twice.
When Royal Mail Special Delivery failed to deliver next day, Claire at Berry Scrumptious insisted on sending more by courier, saying that she would do the same for any customer.
You see, these really are very, very fresh strawberries and in order to remain in tip-top condition, they need to be consumed the day after being sent out. Two days won’t cut it.
They come packaged in a nice presentation box, which in turn is surrounded by foam, chilled with gel cooler bag and sent in a box that’s really far too large for six strawberries. But these are intended as an out and out luxury item. The kind of thing you might serve at a wedding or an extra special party. Or to a Chocablogger for breakfast.
The strawberries are large (5-6cm long), juicy and wonderfully tasty. Most of them are grown on husband and wife team Claire and Ross Rennie’s own farm, but I assume there are times when they need to source them from elsewhere. They’re perfectly ripe and dipped in a combination of Belgian milk, dark and white chocolate, finished with beautiful designs. Some are dipped in coconut. All of them are divine. Even the ones which arrived a day late, although the fresher ones had a noticeable extra crispness.
The different combinations of chocolate make each one slightly different, but they’re all wonderful. It’s quite difficult to eat them without making a mess as the strawberries are so juice and the chocolate cracks away as you bite into it. But that’s half the fun.
All this doesn’t come cheap here though. At £24 for six, they’re the most expensive strawberries – and probably some of the most expensive chocolates – I’ve ever had. Are they worth it? That’s a tough question. They are, after all, just strawberries dipped in chocolate.
Part of what you’re paying for is the customer service. I’m quite sure that Claire is as good as her word that if an order wasn’t delivered promptly, she would find a way to get it to you.
But the quality of the product itself is also first class. I don’t think I’ve ever tasted crisper, juicier strawberries, and the chocolate coating cuts through the citrusy tang of the fruit perfectly.
If I had one criticism, it would be that a little more thought needs to go into how they’re packed and transported. Even the strawberries that arrived next day had a slight condensation on them that had made the paper cases they sit in slightly damp. Perhaps something as simple as sending fresh paper cases that you can transfer the strawberries into upon arrival would help here.
Despite that hefty price, I don’t think I’d have any trouble recommending these. Make no mistake, they’re for very special occasions only, but if you’re planning a unique and stylish event and you can afford it, they really are rather delicious.
My turn to approach the breakfast foods. Annie’s Homegrown has a young target audience with their products, but it is my belief that good foods have no age group. Their Cheddar Bunnies, for instance, are a favorite of mine. Not having seen their cereal before, I took up this box as part of my grocery selection. Notice the brown color; I think Annie’s is intentionally communicating that this doesn’t have to be just a children’s cereal. The back of the box is also interesting: above the word and picture activities is a short blurb about chocolate that still managed to teach me something. Namely, that back when the Aztecs used cacao beans as currency, four beans were the price of a turkey. See the useful facts you learn from cereal boxes?
This cereal is supposed to take the forms of two rabbits and, I think, a flower. You have to use your imagination a little to see rabbit shapes. Now, the thing I like about kid’s cereals of this “healthy” kind, besides the abstract art, is the taste of the evaporated cane juice they use. Its sweet deliciousness is delicate as honey, just not so thick.
Half the cereal is chocolate, half vanilla, which means that the chocolate taste is simple and light. The advantage of this being the case is that it isn’t a cereal that will quickly grow overwhelming or repetitive. The vanilla flavor turns out in equal strength, not artificial at all. The two go together well. There’s also something of a wheat taste on the side if you’re eating them straight out of the box, which would be due to the whole oat flour and rice flour.
The crunch is very soft, as this cereal absorbs liquid quickly; not a downside, however, since there’s no problem finishing before it gets too soggy. I only have the usual problem I have with cereals (well, their Nutrition Facts): how can this box have eight servings? It’s more like two or three. But I’m sure I’ll be buying this again many times — Annie’s just makes entertaining food to eat, which also has better ingredients than average.
